May we pray together: Gracious God, as we ground our bodies and settle into an awareness of your presence with us, we pray that you make curious our minds and open our hearts in the silence of this moment—in spite of me or through me—work your will in our hearts and lives.
Amen.
I bet that when you woke up this morning, you didn’t bank on arriving to church on this Sunday after Valentine’s Day and hearing a ghost story replete with witches from a pastor with blue, orange, and pink hair.
I never expected that I would step foot behind the pulpit of a Baptist church again. But, alas, here you are. And here I am. And, here we are—in a ghost story, the Sunday after Valentine’s Day, and not at Halloween. What a surprising Sunday!
And what a perfect set up for the surprise I think this text holds.
A few weeks ago, I sat enraptured at the storytelling prowess of Reverend Grace Imathiu who shared with our group an African proverb that rings true as I consider today’s scripture.
The proverb says this: “Until the story is told by the lion, the story will always glorify the hunter.” When this story gets told, the glory usually goes to the hunter absent from it—the one whose narrative this one seemingly interrupts: David. And if it doesn’t glorify David, the absentee hunter, it certainly makes sure to use the downfall of Saul, the hunter actually present in this story, as a warning: heed God’s law or suffer the consequences.
So, it behooves us, I think, to back up a bit and unpack what’s happening here in the story of Saul’s demise—because, though my intention is not to glorify the hunter, we can’t look closely at the lion without knowing the threats facing her— for they were many.
We enter this story, in a time of unrest. Saul knows the end of his time as king is upon him and desperately tries to prevent it—or at least stall it—by grasping at straws and power. When he suspects the priests of Nob have plotted against him because they were not sharing adequate information about David’s whereabouts, he has them all killed. He believed they were traitors, after all. Those who actually manage to survive joined David—the boy who would be king.
The prophet Samuel has died, not that there was any great love between him and Saul in the first place, as evidenced by the ghost’s grumpiness in this story.
To Saul, Samuel was a failed prophet. Such was anyone who brought Saul news he didn’t want to hear—failures and losers, the lot of them. And then there were the fake news mediums. Saul kicked them out of the land, too. There would be no dissidents and malcontents and powers Saul could not control here. He alone would hold the power—and that’s exactly how we find him: alone—at least as far as wisdom is concerned.
Without anyone to advise, challenge, or cajole him, Saul finds himself on the eve of battle with the Philistines—Israel’s arch-rivals—and desperate to assure his own safety and security—
His prayers met with the same indifference he’s shown Israel’s God.
And with nowhere else to go—with all the approved means of seeking God returning to him silence from the void, Saul violates his own law and seeks a medium, someone who can access the someone who can access God. A supernatural telephone, if you will, someone who can get him access to Samuel again, so Samuel can access God: he goes to the Woman of Endor.
Can we pause here and appreciate that—though her livelihood has been outlawed, Saul’s men readily point him to this woman.
It seems not everyone in Saul’s kingdom follows Saul’s law—even amongst his own household.
And while we are pausing, can we take a moment to wonder: why would Saul request a woman specifically? After all, there were male mediums.
Maybe it’s because a man showing up to another man’s tent in the dark of night might be considered a threat while showing up to a woman’s tent is just…suspicious. He’s done this neither this woman nor her reputation no favors by showing up at her place at night.
Maybe it’s because Saul knows the word of a woman carries less weight?
Maybe it’s something else—whatever it is, I find it to be curious.
And it offers me more evidence of Saul’s desperate grasping for power in these moments: he may be threatened by the Philistines, and God might be silent, but he’s still got more power than a mere woman.
We turn our attention to this woman. It’s her story I want to tell, after all. She’s behind enemy lines, amongst the Philistines. Why? She’s been cast out there. Maligned. Her livelihood threatened. Her life threatened if she practices her livelihood. Now scandalized when three strange men show up at her door. And she’s rightly afraid.
Saul’s disguised presence and request surprises her, makes her feel attacked. Threatened. Hunted. You're setting a trap for me, she accuses. But after assurances, cautiously, she moves forward asking what this stranger wants from her. He wants her to call the ghost of Samuel—When she sees the ghost—she knows: It’s the king who requested her to call the prophet.
So as any woman threatened in the dead of night might do—as anyone who knows their life is on the line might do—she screams at the top of her lungs, recognizing the danger. “You are the king!”
Somehow, Saul manages to assure she’ll not be punished and they continue… The news, for Saul, didn’t get better. Samuel is not a friendly ghost. He’s no happier in death than he was in life. And Saul receives no assurances, save these: He will be defeated. He’ll lose his kingdom. He’ll see Samuel again in about 24 hours. Ominous.
And, it’s here that something happens—something key:
In this moment, there’s a transition. In this moment, Saul may king, but this woman—this woman translators call “witch”—the outcast, the maligned, the suspect: she holds the power.
When we meet Saul in this text, he’s systematically caused his own downfall by not listening to God, slaughtering the voices that might speak to God on his behalf, and casting out anyone who might have access to any power he cannot control. We find him with the enemy at his back door, front door, and looking in the windows.
And does he devise a plan for the care and defense of his people? No.
He knows what comes next, so he sneaks out to find security and assurance— from the woman he’s created as an additional enemy.
He’s cast out this woman. He audaciously showed up at her tent in the middle of the night. He deceived her—or attempted to, anyway. And now, Now, he cowers before her in fear and desperation. She’s really got the upper-hand, here.
So, what does this marginalized, ostracized, victimized woman do with this newfound power?
She feeds her enemy.
She feeds her enemy.
She feeds her enemy.
While the hunter—the king of Israel cowers, the one who—for the sake of his own power made of her a poor refugee—while he lies at her feet, unfed, unwell, and terrified—this lioness, the woman they call witch, looks to his good.
She transforms here, taking all the agency she has as owner of this tent and insists that he eat, comforts him, offers him—not a way out—his future is set— but she offers him dignity as he faces it.
It will be another 15 generations—another thousand years—before the words of Jesus encourage us—no, command us—to love our enemies.
Yet here she is, in the face of Saul’s tyranny, his abuse of power, his crushing oppression, here she is—looking her enemy in the eye, offering him bread, comforting him. His journey is not ended yet, and he will need his strength to continue. She knows that. And offers it. This woman they call witch is generous and good and the model of hospitality and grace.
Her enemy comes to her door in the dead of night, and she has him there—on the ground, trapped in his despair, and she does not gloat or attack or mock or even rush him out of her door for her own protection.
She offers him the hope of facing his future with dignity and strength.
And, I wonder: will we?
I am not certain who your Saul is—who makes you feel attacked, threatened, thrown away…
Is it a family member whose political ideologies you just don’t understand?
A boss or coworker who micromanages and disrespects you?
The one refusing to use your proper pronoun seemingly out of spite?
The one proclaiming “okay boomer” or the one dismissing you as another entitled hipster millennial?
The officer who pulls you over?
The man who tells me a woman cannot be called by God to preach?
I don’t know who you call enemy.
I do know who I call enemy.
And I wonder, if and when the tables turn, if they show up at our door: will we offer them bread?